Health officials set goals for a healthier Spartanburg

Saturday

Jun 29, 2013 at 10:02 PM

About six years ago, a group of local health and community leaders gathered in a conference room and asked each other the question:

By DUSTIN WYATTdustin.wyatt@shj.com

About six years ago, a group of local health and community leaders gathered in a conference room and asked each other the question:"Are we satisfied with the health of Spartanburg County?"The answer, by unanimous decision, was "No." After analyzing data and statistics, they learned that more than 24 percent of the county's working age adults have no health insurance. They learned 20 percent of the adults lack a college education. Other statistics indicated 10 percent of residents don't have teeth in their mouths, 64 percent of adults are obese, and more than 41,000 adults have a diagnosable mental illness.The list goes on and on.The health leaders knew there were problems and issues that needed to be addressed in the community, but they weren't exactly sure how to fix them.A short time later, there was a two-day local public health system assessment retreat at Mary Black Memorial Hospital. About 100 health and community leaders attended. The meeting helped them to realize their biggest weakness wasn't the health system, but a lack of partnerships in the community."We weren't working together," said Renee Romberger, Vice President of Community Health Policy and Strategy at Spartanburg Regional Health Care System. "We realized how we all affect each other. If one agency is not healthy, it affects the rest of us. If one agency has funding issues or capacity issues, it affects the entire public health system."The public health system includes not only the health care providers, but also any organization that affects or is affected by health, she adds.Law enforcement. The school system. Non-profit organizations. Churches."Everything relates to health," said Dr. Kathleen Brady, director of Metropolitan Studies at the University of South Carolina Upstate. "Poverty is a predictor of health outcomes. But educational attainment rate is the strongest predictor of health outcomes."So when the group of health leaders walked out of that two-day retreat, they all looked at each other and knew: "We have got to start partnering," Romberger said. "We realized we have got to stop trying to save the world by ourselves."This led to the formation of an initiative that has grown to include more than 40 organizations in the county. The initiative is called the Road to Better Health and these organizations, collectively, focus on improving five red flags in the community — childhood obesity, behavioral health, tobacco use, birth outcomes and access to health.Residents may have heard of it. Even if they haven't, they probably have been impacted by it in some way.It already has many success stories since its inception five years ago.Its meetings, which are held quarterly, contributed to the development of AccessHealth Spartanburg, a non-profit that helps lower income patients find affordable physicians. Key leaders of the initiative were involved in getting a citywide smoking ban and continues similar work through the tobacco workgroup convened by Mary Lynn Tollison of the Spartanburg Drug and Alcohol Commission and Terry Taylor of the SC Tobacco Free Coalition.Another highlight since the coalition formed is the number of teen pregnancies has continued to decline in the county."Everyone (involved in the initiative) respects each other," Romberger said. "We rely on each other. Everybody carries their weight. And everyone who has been with this initiative from the beginning is still in the saddle."Each area of focus is convened by leaders who already work to address these issues as part of their daily jobs. Laura Ringo, executive director for Partners for Active Living, leads the efforts to decrease childhood obesity. Matt Petrofes, director of the Upstate region of the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control, is leading the efforts to improve birth outcomes.Petrofes said organizations in the community working together benefits everyone."It's very important that we be responsive to the community's priorities," he said, "and work together to utilize our resources in the most efficient way to achieve outcomes."They hold quarterly meetings where members of the coalition point out problems in the community, brainstorm ideas for improvement, highlight progress, and pinpoint measurable goals for the future.Objectives and goals the coalition hopes to achieve by 2018 include reducing the number of ER discharges for ambulatory care sensitive conditions, decreasing childhood obesity by 3 percent, reducing the infant mortality rate by 3 percent, lowering the number of youth smokers by 3 percent among many more.While most aggregated health outcome statistics are very slow to move, said Brady, coalition leaders are optimistic for the future."We have reason to be optimistic," Petrofes said. "We are all working together, we are all trying to utilize our resources toward achieving goals, we have a good framework and structure in place that will help us stay focused and stay on track. We have a lot going for us."